The WHO and World Bank are requesting an annual budget of $31.1 billion for pandemic preparedness and prevention.  An amount that is almost ten times WHO’s current budget. This money will be used to fund the growing pandemic industry.

Where the funding is going matters because funds to finance the pharmaceutical corporations, research institutions and bureaucrats who stand to benefit from the pandemic agenda will have to be diverted from programmes that work, viz. improved nutrition, sanitation, water and hygiene.

By David Bell and Ramesh Thakur, as published by Brownstone Institute on 25 August 2026

The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted a stark divide in how the covid pandemic was handled by public health authorities. This is as true of Australia as of the US.

[Related: Fauci’s attorney is kicked out of Senate hearing on covid; the public erupts in applause and Fauci held in contempt as covid cellphone lands in hands of Senate investigators, Fox News, 6 August 2026]

Repeatedly, against certainty expressed in public to justify official statements on the origins of the virus and on lockdown, mask and vaccine policies, their private contemporaneous conversations confirm that even the top scientists were making decisions based on scientific uncertainty.

Consequently, one of the key legacies of the public-private gap is growing distrust of official claims. That scepticism should extend to the future pandemic agenda. We rely on the World Health Organisation to coordinate among countries to prevent scourges such as pandemics reaching our shores, or at least mitigate their effects. In doing so, we must defer to an army of international bureaucrats who work in such institutions. A deference that relies on trust.

Their salaries and careers depend on convincing us to part with more of our money to support their work. Yet, according to a new article on international pandemic financing in the Cambridge journal Health Economics, Policy and Law, the World Health Organisation (“WHO”) and the World Bank rely on dubious assumptions to calculate the return-on-investment case on which all major international efforts to mitigate future pandemics rely.

This should alarm governments. Mitigation is worth investing in, as pandemics will occur from time to time. But the article shows that current investments will have an overall detrimental effect on global health. Most starkly, it suggests a deep rot in the quality of institutions we rely on as stewards of this commonly accepted global good.

Read More – WHO and World Bank request $31 billion a year to feed the pandemic industry